


Dead Man's Poison

by whittler_of_words



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Chucklevoodoos, Developing Relationship, Gen, Haunting, Horror, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Karkat Is A Ghost, Major Character Death Warning not related to Karkat Being A Ghost, Psychic Abilities, Violence, implied grave robbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 12:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13248720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whittler_of_words/pseuds/whittler_of_words
Summary: In the end, death suits Karkat Vantas surprisingly well.Time passes.Someone moves in.---Your classic haunting, from a ghost's perspective. And this ghost is tired of everyone's shit. He's so, so tired.





	Dead Man's Poison

**Author's Note:**

> according to google docs, i started writing this fic on Jan 14th, 2014, at what i can only guess was some ungodly hour of the morning. that makes this story nearly four years in the making, and as you can imagine, i've kind of moved past homestuck, and talk to almost none of the people i did when this fic first came into conception
> 
> BUT! after four years of slowly plodding away at this, i've finally managed to finish it. all i have to say is: this concept is old, a good 12k of this writing is old, and over time this has become more about finishing something instead of it being perfect. i hope that any inconsistincies aren't too glaring!
> 
> and, of course: thank you to everyone who helped me create this, everyone who inspired me to finish this, and you, for reading what will likely be the last homestuck i write for a while.
> 
> cheers!

In the end, death suits Karkat Vantas surprisingly well.

The surprising part being that there is any part of Karkat left to suit, seeing as how he’s supposed to be, well, _dead_ \-- bit the dust, gone, snuffed out of existence like a sputtering flame curling into smoke as it drowned itself in its own wax. 

But he’s, well...

_Not._

He drifts about in a fog-like haze at first, once he’s done screaming at people who can’t hear him anymore. He’s numb, numb from his skin to his bones and down to his soul, which really might be the only thing left of him -- numb in a way that doesn’t quite keep him from feeling but leaves him incapable of doing anything about it.

He doesn’t realize what it is that’s slowly starting to build in his chest at first, as he watches his brother pack everything away. (His brother with bruised eyes that make him look more dead than alive, as the house is left empty and blank and cold.

It’s quiet. More quiet than it ever was when he was living there, more still even than the times he’d sit in the dark of his room in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep, pitch black pressing in on him from all sides and swallowing his every breath. 

Everything is gone. Everything that proved that he was alive, once; his notebooks that he would write in, all of his movies and his books, every failed attempt at coding and all of his movie posters. The abandoned school projects and unneeded pages of homework stashed in his closet under boxes of the random shit he’d collect. Every single thing, just gone. Blank off-white walls with patchy textured paint, wooden-planked floors that mock him as they slowly gather dust.)

He’s...angry.

It starts off slow. Still washed over with that numbness, he takes to wandering the house. He can leave, sure, if he wants. But every second he’s outside and the farther he gets, something tugs in his chest and he knows, in a strange sort of way, that going too far isn’t a good idea. He doesn’t really like it, in any case. He suspects that he’s moping. He doesn’t really care.

After a while -- a few weeks, a few months, a year, he doesn’t know and he doesn’t want to -- it builds in his chest until it’s burning, acid fire keeping him restless and frustrated. He doesn’t know where it’s coming from, what he’s angry at, he just _is_. Angry at himself, he guesses, for being so stupid, angry at all his regrets. All those missed chances and wasted opportunities, look at them go! 

Angry at how immature he was, before, acting the way he did when he didn’t have the slightest excuse to. Hiding behind an act that everybody seemed to see through, anyway. He wishes a lot that he could take it all back, all of the things he said that cut a bit too deep and people didn’t deserve.

Regrets are a dead man’s poison. Too bad this one doesn’t give a shit.

Dust gathers. Trespassers break into the house occasionally and politely do not touch anything, sleeping in corners sometimes. He watches them silently. He’ll give the homeless their dues. God knows some people could use a break.

People come into the house in between long intervals, men in gray uniforms tugging huge vacuums that suck up all the dirt and dust and mop the floors until everything is as cold and lifeless as the last time they left it. He doesn’t interrupt them. They’re just doing their job. He tries to pretend that all these people he doesn’t know walking in and out of his house doesn’t bother him, doesn’t make him want to reach out and scream until they realize he’s still _here_.

Time passes. The anger grows in increments.

Someone moves in.

Karkat expected it. The house wouldn’t stay empty forever. But it’s still a shock to see the moving van parked in the weed-ridden driveway. There’s an urge to stand at the window to get a look at the person coming to claim his home, but he backs away from it instead, walking through the still-open door and down the stairs to linger underneath the shaded windows of the dining room. 

There’s the slam of a door opening and closing, the sound of a voice. It’s a few minutes before there’s the scritch-click of keys turning in the front door, then the door itself opening on creaky hinges. Another minute still before someone finally walks in. There’s a huge box in their hands and something tucked between their neck and shoulder.

“Haha, yeah!” It must be a phone, Karkat decides, as the guy walks past him to dump the box on the living room floor. “But it’s nice, I guess. Quaint. Sort of. And dusty!” Karkat gets a better look at him as he walks past a second time, back towards outside. Black hair, blue flannel, jeans. Alone, Karkat thinks. “Oh, shut up. You know you’re just jealous that--” 

His voice fades as he walks back out. It’s only a few moments before he returns, another box in his hands. “Dave.” He walks back to the living room, pausing there once his box is in place. “Dave, I-- Can you-- Dave, I se-” He sighs, draws in a breath. “ _Dave_! I need to bring my boxes in! I’ll call you once I’m done.” He hangs up directly after, slipping the phone into his pocket.

It’s another hour before the van is apparently empty. By the time the stranger is done, the boxes spill over from the living room to the dining room and into the kitchen. It’s dark outside, and for the first time in a long time, when the switch is flipped, the lights turn on. Karkat watches as the man carries a few of the boxes up to what used to be Karkat’s room, trailing behind him. When he’s seemingly satisfied, he takes out his phone again and places it on the floor next to him as he sits, pulling a box toward him.

_“Yo.”_

“Hey.”

_“Well, look who’s decided to spare some of their time for little old me. I’m honored, John.”_ A voice drawls from the phone, the audio spitting slightly over the speakers.

“As you should be.” John rifles through the box, decides that whatever’s in there can wait until later, and pushes it to the side before grabbing another box. “I’m just going through some stuff right now to see what I can put away. I thought that all of the big stuff would’ve gotten here already. Bluh.”

_“All in good time, Egbert. Every cloud has a silver lining.”_

“If having to sleep on the floor is a silver lining, then sure,” John snorts. “Good thing I packed some blankets. It’s going to suck to have to wait for my computer, though.”

_“Ah, the sad fate of an internet addict. However shall you live?”_

“Hey,” John snaps jokingly, “my addiction is a serious problem. It’s tearing my family apart. And you’re one to talk.”

_“Ouch,”_ Dave hisses. _“We’ve been friends for years, but, dude. I think that crosses the line. I don’t know how I’m going to salvage the remains of our broken friendship.”_

“You’ll manage,” John says.

_“Yeah. So. How’s the new place look now that you’ve been able to really get your eyes in it.”_

“Eh.” John moves on to the next box as he speaks. “It’s a house. Not really much to say about it. I like it though. I think it’s... It’s good for a fresh start, y’know?” 

The voice on the other end is quiet for a moment. _“Well, like I said earlier. Silver linings, y’know. You take your time doing what you need to do and shit.”_

“Definitely, now that I have your vote of approval.” John stands, leaving the phone where it is, pushing one of the boxes over to the closet with a foot. The door opens mostly silently. John peers in for a second before pushing the box in and going back for another one. “I’m not really sure what to do with the two extra rooms, though.”

_“Throw a rave,”_ Dave says immediately. _“Party hard. Be the life of the neighborhood. Make a reputation for yourself as the resident badboy.”_

“Why do I listen to you?” John shakes his head. “You’re a bad influence on me, man.”

_“Because you love me. No homo.”_

John groans, dragging a hand over his face even though the voice on the other end of the line can’t see him. “Dude, can you stop that? It’s not funny anymore.”

_“Really? Because I think it’s fucking hilarious.”_

“I was thirteen! Why do you still have to bring that up!”

_“To help you learn from past mistakes. Because I care. And also because, it’s fucking hilarious. I will serve as a constant reminder as to the naivette of your younger self.”_

“I like to call it unwitting ignorance.” The box catches on a slight raise of the wood as John tries to push it into the closet, and it tips over, spilling books onto the floor. “Ah, shit.” 

“ _What happened?”_

“Nothing. Just tipped over a box.” He bends down to pick them up, having to go half into the closet to do so, and stops. “Huh.”

_“What?”_

“Hold on.” John reaches back for the phone and uses the light of it to illuminate the back of the closet. “That’s weird.”

_“Seriously, what? How many times am I going to have to repeat myself?”_

“Calm down dude, geeze. There’s something written back here.”

_“Well? What does it say?”_

“ ‘She brings the light of death to me, that girl,’ ” John begins, voice slow. “ ‘Her smile one of teeth and passion true. Sharp grace, sharp wit, sharp tongue, all angle-edged. A bruise blooms flowered every time we meet.

“ ‘What else is there to her that I can’t see? Things hidden ‘neath the skin of her dismay. The sun that shines behind her eyes gone dark, you’re cracked, not broken; whole still, I would know. 

“ ‘She’s strong, that girl, she always stops the show. A shining light, not just a spark. She glows.

“ ‘I’ll love her...even if she never knows.’ ” 

Oh.

_“Iambic pentameter?”_ Dave says, sounding speculative. _“That’s some hard shit, even if it’s cheesy as hell. Does it say who it’s by?”_

No, it doesn’t.

“Mm, not that I can see. Maybe it was by the guy who lived here before.”

It was. And he’d forgotten about it.

_“Didn’t you say he died in an accident or something?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Creepy. Did someone forget to warn him about the stairs, dawg?”_

“Uh. Yeah. Actually. It’s what I heard.”

One step was all it took and everything fell apart at the seams.

There’s an awkward silence for a few moments, before Dave clears his throat. _“Well. I’m not using that joke for a while.”_

“Yeah, tell me about it.” John puts the books back in the box, and before long the rest of the boxes he brought up are stacked in the closet as well, although he leaves a few out, pushed into a corner. He walks over to the window and peeks through the blinds. It’s fully dark out now, and it was always a quiet neighborhood. Most of the kids that Karkat grew up with moved away during the past couple of years, and it’s irritatingly peaceful most of the time. “I should hit the hay,” John says, bending down to pick up the phone from the floor. “The guys with my furniture will probably be here tomorrow and I don’t want to sleep in and miss them.”

_“Roger that,”_ Dave says. 

“Tell Jade I said hi?”

_“Sure thing. This place will be good for you, John.”_

“Yeah.” John’s gaze sweeps over the pile of boxes and lingers on the closed closet door as he exits the room. “I hope you’re right.” 

The door shuts behind him with a soft click.

\- - 

A different van comes again the next day, trafficking various pieces of furniture into the house. It’s loud and busy and Karkat’s house is being filled with a stranger’s things.

He _likes_ it. It feels _right_ that this house should be lived in again, that it won’t be so empty anymore. No more oppressive silence, no more long periods of nothing broken only by the occasional straggler. Soft, warm colors, not clinical white. It’s a home again. 

So Karkat doesn’t understand why he’s so _fucking_ angry.

He sees a plate left carelessly on the counter and immediately wants to push it to the floor and watch it shatter. Every time a light is left on he wants nothing more than to turn it off in a vaguely destructive way. The only thing stopping him from doing just that is the knowledge that it’s simply _wrong_. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

Then he starts slipping.

He’s alone, in the room that John took up for himself but what used to be Kankri’s, observing the posters, yellow explosions pasted across the walls. These are all fucking stupid, he thinks, and, not even questioning the hot flash of irritation, he focuses in on it and makes one of the posters fall from where it hangs. And then another. It’s not until every single paper lays in a pile on the floor that Karkat realizes what he’s done, and he curses.

It’s late. John is asleep. The taste of change causes the lack of activity to leave Karkat more bored than he’s been for a long time. He absent-mindedly flips the TV on, which John hasn’t paid the cable for yet, and static snow fills the screen. Karkat stares into it for what could be minutes or hours, zoning out to the crackling _thrrrrsshhhhhh_ , and John eventually comes into the room, blinking confusedly at the TV before turning it off and walking in a tired shuffle back to his room.

Karkat’s finding less and less reasons not to knock a CD from its shelf, or shift chairs and furniture in a way that’s becoming less barely noticeable. When he’s in a bad mood, he finds himself doing more blatant things, like rearranging the silverware in the drawers and cabinets and tossing blankets off of the beds.

He’s been in bad moods more and more lately. And it keeps getting worse.

Morning. John is eating breakfast and browsing his phone and the TV is on, loud. Karkat has a headache, the weird one he sometimes gets in his left temple where he hit his head on the banister on his way down. It curves through his brain like a livewire. 

“Turn it off,” Karkat says, but John doesn’t hear him. No one can hear him, but at the moment that fact is irrelevant. “Turn the TV off.” Nothing.

His headache spikes suddenly with the sound of an animated explosion, and Karkat snaps.

“I said turn it _off!_ ” 

The bathroom door closest to Karkat slams shut with a loud _bang_ at the same moment that the TV clicks off. John jumps, dropping his phone into his cereal in surprise. It’s still working as John bolts to wipe it off with a dish towel. Not broken.

Karkat wishes that it was.

A week of John living there turns to two and three and Karkat finds himself escalating with no real desire to stop himself. He turns cups upside down, moving things when John looks away even for a moment, hides John’s glasses and shoes and makes him late for work, makes him wake up in the middle of the night to turn off the staticy TV. John calls the cable company, talks to his neighbors, even goes so far as to get the wiring in it looked at, but everyone reports a complete lack of technical problems.

John takes to looking over his shoulder as he walks through the house when the sun goes down.

There are the beginnings of dark smudges beginning to form underneath his eyes. It’s hard to sleep, when the house always seems to be awake at night. Karkat opens and closes the doors in the house loudly just to watch as John walks through the entire property trying to find the source of the noise, or as has rapidly been becoming the case, curling up under the covers and holding his breath. Fear, Karkat discovers, is a powerful thing.

He pulls the blankets off of John while he sleeps one night, slowly so as not to wake him up. John takes one look at the blue-gray blanket arranged in a neat circle at the foot of his bed in the morning and pales. He doesn’t sleep very well for a while after that.

John leaves, once. Is gone for four days and doesn’t come back the entire time. Karkat can’t follow because he doesn’t know where he is. The house is left dark again and Karkat feels justified in his anger, this time, because _how dare he._

_How dare he leave._

When John finally returns, black luggage bag in hand, Karkat slams the front door behind him and half the other doors in the house. John yelps, turns around, stares at the door for a handful of seconds.

Falls against the wall and sinks to the floor, slowly.

“Why?” John’s voice wavers. “Why are you doing this?” His head is buried in his hands and his shoulders shake. “Please, please stop, please, I can’t take this, I can’t. I just wanted to start over. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I’m sorry. Just stop. Please.”

Everything in Karkat _burns_ to crack the mirror just above John, to shatter it and rain glass shards onto his skin for daring to cry, his fingers itching to fling John’s things across the room.

He doesn’t.

But he doesn’t stop.

He _can’t._

John is at the table. He’s half falling asleep over his food. Karkat swipes a hand through the glass in front of him and it breaks loudly enough for it to seem more like an explosion. John flinches bodily, pushing the chair away from the table before staring at the clear liquid spilling from the wood table to the floor.

Without looking away, John slowly pulls his phone out of his pocket, and dials a number.

_“Hello?”_ The phone is just loud enough for Karkat to hear the tinny sound of a woman’s voice from the other end of the line.

“My house is haunted,” John says dully. There’s silence for a few seconds, and Karkat walks closer thinking she might be speaking too quietly to hear, but she must’ve just not been speaking at all, because John continues, voice flat. “Or I’m going insane. Most likely both at the same time. The cause and effect isn’t really clear.”

_“Are you certain?”_

“Yeah. The TV turns on to static loud enough that I can’t sleep and it stays on even when I unplug it. And things move. And break.” John watches as water puddles to the floor, making no move to clean it up. “Also a glass of water just exploded right in front of me.”

There’s only quiet for a few seconds. The person on the other end of the line taking the information in, Karkat’s guessing. “W _hy did it take you so long to tell someone? And why me, for that matter?”_

“Well, you know a lot about spooky shit,” John shrugs. “And I didn’t really want to bother anyone. I could deal. I was the stupid white guy in the horror movie, it was me.” John laughs tonelessly. “But things started getting worse after I came back from...” John swallows visibly. “Dad’s thing. The anniversary.”

_“You don’t have anything you need to prove to us, John. You should have said something sooner.”_

John hesitates. His breath catches on the next word. “You-- do you think it’s--”

_“Oh John, sweetheart, no. I’ve checked and double checked and no attempts at summoning his spirit have been successful. He’s moved on. Your ghost is someone else, I promise.”_

Karkat pretends his interest isn’t piqued. John just grunts noncommittally. “Well,” he says, “if you don’t know anything that can help I guess I’ll just go. I have to see how much I pissed this thing off by calling you.”

_“I didn’t say I couldn’t help,”_ the woman says quickly before John can hang up. _“Anything I could do personally would probably just exacerbate the issue, but... I may know someone, who knows someone. He’s a bit unorthodox, but trustworthy. Would you be willing to talk with him?”_

John says, “Rose, right now I would be willing to do anything.”

_“He travels around a lot, so I don’t know how far he is from you. But money isn’t an object for him. I’ll ask him to meet you as soon as possible. Can you hold on until then?”_

“Sure,” John says, sounding entirely hopeless. “What’s a few more nights?”

_“Be careful, John,”_ Rose says. “ _Please.”_

“Yeah. Thanks, Rose.” John hangs up, hardly waiting for Rose’s reply. He sits at the table for a long time, unmoving. It’s not until Karkat flickers the lights in the kitchen violently that John gets up to sop up the water on the floor with a towel. His movements are jerky, mechanic.

Karkat is too busy contemplating what this might mean for him to bother John much for the rest of the day.

\- -

The next afternoon there’s a knock on the door.

“Hey, brother.” There’s a man standing there when John opens it. He’s tall, one of the tallest people Karkat’s ever seen, wearing baggy pants and a baggier shirt with a wild poof of curly hair that frames a face white with paint. He smiles easily, eyes lidded.

The only thing that Karkat can think is that he looks completely, totally stoned.

“Uh,” John says, flabbergasted. “Hi?”

“Grimsis called and said she had her a friend who got some legit shit going on. Figured I’d make my way down here to help a brother out.”

“Oh, you mean Rose? I didn’t think you’d get here so fast. Yeah, come-” The man lopes past John and into the house before he’s finished speaking, all gangly limbs. “...in. Who are you?”

“Gamzee Makara.” He’s stopped in the hall just before the living room, right in the spot where someone can see into the kitchen, living room, and dining room all at once, as well as part way up the stairs. Karkat sits next to where there might be a dent in the wooden banister if someone knew to look for it, eyes locked onto the strange man in his home.

“So...” John rubs an arm with a hand. It’s the gesture of a man who has a drugged up stranger in their house and is trying not to be awkward about it. “Are you psychic or something?”

“Some might say a thing like that. But nah. My mind’s just a little more open, you dig? Can’t see or hear no sights but I can get a feel for things be happening around me. Useful shit for tellin’ when people are just lonely motherfuckers looking for attention.”

John looks taken aback by this, his tone defensive.“I’m not--”

“Chill, bro.” Gamzee smiles at John again, lopsided. “Wasn’t trying to imply nothin’. Gotta follow protocol.”

John pauses, takes a breath.“Yeah. Okay.” He wipes a hand down his face. It’s the gesture of a man who regrets. Karkat can relate. “Okay, so, can you... Can you feel anything?”

“Well, let’s get our see on, shall we?” Gamzee winks at John before closing his eyes and rolling his head back up to the ceiling, a serene smile still playing on gray-painted lips. He walks forward a bit, drifting past the way to the kitchen and more into the living room. Karkat hears him whisper, “Where are you, motherfucker?” before stopping, and cocking his head to the side. 

Eyes still closed, he tilts his head ever so slightly to where Karkat sits on the stairs, and says, a little louder, “Got you.”

“What?” John stands a couple feet back, his voice more curious than wary. “Did you find something?”

“Sure did.” Gamzee’s not facing Karkat directly, aim off by a few feet to the left, but it still manages to make him feel weirdly vulnerable, for all Gamzee’s eyes are still closed. And that makes him, well, angry, unsurprisingly, all of it rising to a sharp point in his chest. Gamzee’s smile changes in a weird way. “Nasty little fucker, too.”

“Fuck you,” Karkat says, although not very loudly. “Fuck you and the cloud you rode in on. If anyone here is nasty it would be you and Buckteeth Johnson over there.”

Gamzee throws his head back and laughs.

“What?” John shifts on his feet, glancing side to side as if trying to find the source of Gamzee’s inexplicable humor. “Why are you laughing?”

“I just got a feeling that something real funny was said my way is all.”

Karkat scowls. “That wasn’t funny.” Gamzee keeps laughing. Karkat doesn’t know if Gamzee can even really hear him but it still feels like an insult. Like he’s mocking him; _so funny, you can’t do anything, weak little thing doesn’t even have a body, all bark and no bite, it’s hilarious, what can he do?_ “Shut up.” But he doesn’t stop, eyes open now and looking at John who’s smiling tentatively back, painted skin at the edges of his eyes crinkled up in genuine amusement, and rage wells up and consumes Karkat like fire.

“ _Stop laughing at me!”_

A massive bang sounds where Karkat’s fist slams down on the step of the stairs. The light in the kitchen explodes at the same time the unplugged TV turns on in a deafening hiss, and a chair at the dining room table slides a whole foot across the floor with a loud screech before toppling over completely. John nearly falls in his haste to step back, but Gamzee doesn’t even flinch. The smile is gone, though. He’s not laughing anymore.

There’s a few seconds of silence.

“I reckon,” Gamzee says softly, “that maybe I took the joke a bit too far.” He turns to John, smile back on his face. “Probably not welcome here much. I should leave ‘fore it’s decided best thing to hurry me on my way.” He walks back toward the door, clapping John on the shoulder once as he passes by. 

“I’ll send ghostsis on her way here quicker than a motherfucker could wish themself to be. Try not to die until she gets here.” 

And with that and a wave, he’s gone, loping casually down the street.

John stares after him for a few minutes, before silently closing the door and going to sweep up the shattered remains of the light bulb littering the kitchen floor.

\- -

Karkat is prepared for the woman who is supposed to get rid of him when she comes.

He is not prepared, however, for the smiling girl with long hair bouncing on her heels and the uncomfortable looking boy at her elbow.

“Hi!” She says. “My name’s Aradia, and this is Sollux. Gamzee sent us here. We would have called but Gamzee didn’t leave us a number to contact you with.”

“Hey.” John nods at them both. “Please, come in. I really, really appreciate your help.” Karkat falls back from the hallway by the living room to the top of the stairs and out of sight as they step through the threshold, their voices muffled but still clear enough to be heard.

He doesn’t know why he moves. It’s not like they can see him.

“Don’t thank us.” Karkat doesn’t recognize this voice. It must belong to the guy with the obnoxiously childish bi-colored glasses. “We haven’t done anything yet.”

“Still, I’m just glad I’m finally able to do something about this.”

“So, tell me -- John, right? What exactly has been going on around here?”

“Ghosty shit, really.” The direction of his voice changes as they move toward the couch. “Things move around and get knocked over. A lot. At first it wasn’t so bad, but things have gotten a lot worse lately. It really likes keeping me up at night. I haven’t really slept in... uh, a while.”

“Sounds like your classic poltergeist. What are you thinking, AA?”

“Hm.” Aradia hums softly for a few moments. “Has it tried to harm you directly? Thrown anything at you, dragged you down the hallway in the middle of the night?”

There’s a moment of quiet. “Now that I think about it, no. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised, but it’s been--”

“More of a nuisance than anything else?” John makes a noise of assent at Sollux’s suggestion. “Doesn’t seem like it’s too far from getting to that point, though.”

“Do you know if anyone died here, John?” Karkat can almost hear the smile in Aradia’s voice, her tone one of someone who’s about to deliver the punchline of a joke. Talk about inappropriate.

John must catch it too, if the second of silence is anything to go by.“Um. Yeah, three years ago. It’s why I was able to afford this house in the first place. A guy fell down the stairs right over there.”

“Interesting!” There’s the sound of people moving; Karkat keeps his eyes on the wall opposite of him as the voice draws closer to the stairs and his hiding spot. “That might not mean anything, of course, but it definitely helps.” Aradia’s voice lowers to a whisper for a few seconds, but before Karkat can try to figure out what she might have said, she’s speaking again, pointedly much louder than before. “You can come out now!” 

Karkat freezes, the wall at his back a senseless pressure. She couldn’t be talking to--

“Hey, asshole, we’re talking to you. Get your floaty ass out here.”

Karkat’s responding before he can stop himself. “How about _no, athhole.”_

“Ooh, burn,” Sollux deadpans. “It’s not like anyone’s made fun of the lisp before.”

If Karkat’s heart were still beating, it would have stopped at that.

“What’s going on?” John sounds almost as confused as Karkat feels. “Who are you talking to?”

“Your ghost,” Aradia says cheerfully. “Well, Sollux is. I can’t hear the dead - only see them - but Sollux can. It gives him a headache, though, so he tries not to do it often.”

“You’re talking to it?”

“Him, it sounds like,” Sollux corrects. “He’s also fucking rude.”

Very carefully, very slowly, needing to see for himself, Karkat peers around the wall and down the staircase. Sollux and Aradia are standing directly in front of it, John a few feet back. Aradia’s smile widens visibly and she waves unmistakably at Karkat.

She’s looking at him.

She’s _looking at him._

Karkat can feel his eyes widen -- and then narrow.

“Hi! You’ve been giving John a lot of trouble, you know.”

No. No, no, Karkat doesn’t know why this is a bad thing, but fuck no, fuck _all of this._

“Get out,” he says quietly, and then louder, moving away from his cover and to the very top of the stairs. It makes him dizzy. He ignores it. “Get out! Get the fuck out of my house, you shit-spewing freakshow!” Sollux is whispering quietly to Aradia. John steps away from where the light in the hall begins to flicker. 

“Why?” Aradia asks shortly. It’s not condescending, not taunting, just curiosity at its simplest.

It makes Karkat furious.

“Because I want you to!” Karkat is half down the stairs before he’s finished speaking, every step on the wood a resounding boom. John flinches bodily each time. Sollux and Aradia do not move. “ _Get OUT!”_

Karkat is screaming at almost full volume at the last two words, almost directly in front of them as everything in him burns. Sollux squeezes Aradia’s arm, but she just tilts her head to the side, not scared in the slightest. “What are you so mad about?”

What is he mad about? 

It’s so painfully _obvious,_ but--

Angry about two strangers entering his home, except does he really mind all that much?

of course he’s--

Angry that they’re probably going to try to kill him again, but maybe it’d be nice to get some rest.

he can’t, he doesn’t--

he’s--

His head hurts. 

Blinding white pain falling oh god no I’m sorry _I didn’t mean it--_

Karkat is disappeared to his room in less than a second, long-unneeded breath gone ragged as he clutches at his head and repeats to himself, don’t think about it, don’t think about it.

Don’t think about it. 

Don’t you dare _think_ about it--

_Don’t think about the day you died._

_“Why are you so angry, Karkat!”_

He thinks about it.

\- -

_“Why am I angry? You’re seriously asking me why I’m angry right now?! Maybe it’s because you’re a fucking blah-blah know-it-all hypocrite whose head is shoved so far up his ass he can’t take his own advice!”_

_“That was highly uncalled for and also blatantly incorrect! I am not--”_

_“See?! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! And then you wonder why I fucking hate you!”_

He thinks about it and absolutely nothing changes.

\- -

“...an affliction. A disease, basically. When the dead don’t move on they become stagnant. All that energy just starts to build up, and in the end it takes the form of negative emotion. The more of it, the more powerful the ghost is. Here.” There’s the sound of a bag being opened, the rustling of fabric. “Sprinkle this over the threshold of any room you don’t want him in and it’ll keep him out. It’s not absolute, though, so it won’t work to drive him out completely.”

“But-” There’s the slightest whine of desperation in John’s voice, a show of childishness that only serves to tug on a growing seed of resentment in Karkat’s gut. “Why don’t you just drive him out _now_?”

“Because, if he can still talk, he’s still a person.”

“But-”

“John.” Aradia’s voice is soft. Gentle. “Driving out a ghost is a long, painful process that I would like more than anything to avoid. I don’t just try to get rid of the dead. My job is to help them move on, and driving a ghost away with the only methods I have available are more destructive than helpful. I know this more than anyone.

“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but right now, he literally can’t help himself. And the fact that he hasn’t done anything worse than scare the crap out of you probably means he’s making a very great effort not to hurt you. Unless that happens, I would rather use less harmful means. Okay?”

“I-” There’s an obvious struggle in John’s voice, before he sighs. “Okay.”

“Great! Glad you understand. That’s not to say that we’re not going to try to help you in any way we can; it’s just that you’re only _one_ of my clients in this case.” A pause. “Sollux and I are going to be staying at a friend’s house who lives not too far from here. Call me if anything happens?”

“Sure. Oh - wait, uh--”

“Yes?”

“What do I need to pay you for this?” 

“Oh, it’s fine!” Aradia laughs as she walks to the door, turning on her heel and walking backwards the last couple of steps. Her gaze lights on Karkat as she does so, arms folded over the chest of his grey hoodie as he leans against the open doorframe to the kitchen. “I don’t do this for money.”

Karkat knows that the smile and wink as she leaves is meant for him, and not for John.

He doesn’t know what to think about that.

\- -

The first and only room John uses the powder on is his own.

Karkat doesn’t mind that much. He never really went in there, anyway, except to fuck with John. But the fact that he can’t go in a room of his own house, let alone his _brother’s_ old room, pisses Karkat right the fuck off--

No. What was it Aradia had said? He’d only caught the tail-end of that conversation after his flashback tantrum combo but he’d heard enough to piece some things together. She’d called his anger a disease, hadn’t she? And a disease has to have a cure. So maybe if he holds himself back, stops focusing and acting on his anger so much, it will go away.

He tries. God does he try, he tries so fucking hard.

After two days he finds out that it’s impossible.

He has no control over his own impulses and he _hates_ it, he hates that his best isn’t good enough and he hates that this all could’ve been so easily avoided but _too bad, so sad, dipshit,_ there’s no taking back the past now! 

It’s around this time that Karkat begins to learn what it means to be afraid of yourself.

John brings home a book.

It’s not really all that unexpected, considering that John works at a bookstore. He leaves every Monday through Saturday at half past seven in the morning and comes home at four, except on Saturdays when he comes back at three. He’ll pull into the driveway and step into the front hall with his backpack held in front of him like a shield, and scamper off to his room to hide or whatever. 

It’s during one of Karkat’s almost ritualistic rounds through the house that he comes across the book. It sits unassumingly on the kitchen table, small and thin and barely large enough to be called a book at all. “Classic Poems Through the Ages”, the title reads, and Karkat runs a hand over the cover.

Poetry.

He hasn’t written in a long, long time.

Maybe...

Maybe he should try again.

Reflecting? No, too casual in that context, maybe he should try for contemplating; _I find myself contemplating on things unsaid._ And the things that were, hmm. _And the things that were spoken still haunt me,_ no wait, fuck, _and the things that were spoken still follow me._ Haunt. Follow. Fucking ghost puns.

He loses track of time. John, apparently, doesn’t.

“Is he planning something?” John is practically hissing into the phone, his shoulders hunched up to his ears. “The last time it went quiet like this he blew out all four tires in my car, and that was a couple days. It’s been five! _Five_! I’m kind of freaking the fuck out over here.”

Five days? Has it really been that long?

Karkat can’t hear who it is on the other end of the line, but he can only guess that it’s Aradia John is talking to.

“I’m calm!” John says after a moment of silence. “I am! I am so calm! But I would appreciate a little help here, please.” Another few seconds of silence. “No, it’s been the same here since you left. I don’t really deviate much from my routine, I swear I didn’t do anything.” Aradia must tell him to take a deep breath, because he does, in and out, two times. “Yes. No. Aradia, I’m fine. Alright, alright.”

John shifts back and forth on his feet. “So you’re saying there’s nothing you can do. No, no, it’s fine, it’s just really freaking me out. Bluh, I’m sorry I bothered you. I-- what?” There’s a minute of silence as Aradia speaks, before John draws his shoulders up around the phone further, whispering quietly enough that Karkat has to strain to listen. “Today? Are you sure? No, I don’t have work or anything so I guess I’m free? Yeah, that’s fine. Alright. See you then.”

John hangs up, shoving his phone into his pocket surreptitiously and glancing around before retreating to his room once again.

Nope. Not suspicious at all.

Karkat finds out why John was acting so shifty when Aradia and Sollux show up at the door not even an hour later.

They all sit down at the table together. Karkat doesn’t bother to hide himself this time. Aradia flashes him a smile before turning to John.

“Now that we’ve established initial contact,” she says, “it’s a good idea to try talking to him a little more. We might be able to find out what’s keeping him here and help him move on.”

“Okay.” John looks vaguely uncomfortable. “Let’s do it then, I guess.”

“Let’s start off simple,” she says, turning in her seat to face Karkat fully. John’s eyebrows fly up as he follows her gaze, glancing between her and what to him looks like empty space, his surprise clear. Karkat does his best to ignore it. “What’s your name?”

He stares at her suspiciously for a moment before saying, “Why are you asking me when you could just find out for yourself?” Sollux repeats it, and Aradia smiles.

“I could always look it up,” she says, shrugging, “but I’d rather hear it from you.”

“...Karkat,” he says after a moment, and Sollux scribbles something down on the clipboard in his hands.

“Like this?” he asks, holding it up, and Karkat scoffs.

“With Ks, dumbass, not Cs--”

“It’s not my fault you have a weird name.”

“--and if you’re going to spell it wrong and least spell it wrong _neatly_ , I can barely fucking read your handwriting.”

“Hey, I’ll write however I want to--”

“Boys,” Aradia interrupts. “Do I need to separate you two?”

“You could separate his _head_ from his _ass_.”

“I’m not repeating that,” Sollux says. 

“So--” Aradia leans over to read the clipboard. “Karkat. Am I saying that right? Do you know what might be holding you here?”

Karkat has an idea. But he has no reason to trust them and every reason to suspect them. He keeps his mouth shut.

“Any unfinished business?” Aradia prompts. “Maybe something important you weren’t able to do, or something you want to tell someone? Possibly a loved one you left behind?”

Karkat still says nothing. He doesn’t get why she’s asking, when she probably already know the answer. He’s a fucking _ghost,_ what else is it going to be besides someone who’s still alive? Aradia seems to take his silence as answer enough, for the moment.

“Alright...” she says slowly, changing the subject. “Will you tell us what you’ve been doing the past couple of days, then?”

“What the fuck does it matter?” he says. Like he’s going to tell them he’s been writing poetry in his head. God damn does he wish he had a pen and paper. “Not everything I do revolves around this sad sack of shit over here.”

“Wow,” John says.

“We just want to figure out how to help you.” Aradia politely ignores the interruption. “We can’t do that if you’re unwilling to cooperate.”

“Oh, I know!” Karkat slaps a hand to his face in amazement. “Maybe if you check my old blog for me I’ll be able to move on! Or maybe if I finish that one TV series I never saw the end of! Or--”

“Karkat.” It’s weird to hear someone say his name after all this time, weird enough that it cuts him off from his rant. Aradia is smiling slightly when she asks, “Are you bored?”

It hits him, then, that yes, he is _bored as fuck._

“It’s understable, you know,” she says, carrying on before something like a grudging silence could even think to begin. “There’s not very many interesting things to do when you’re dead.”

“No shit,” Karkat grumbles.

“It’s good that you have us to talk to then, huh?” Aradia says, smiling like she knows she just pulled a low fucking blow and has no qualms about it in the slightest.

Karkat tries his best to evade her questions, especially when she starts getting close to things from when he was alive. He has no idea what it is she’s trying to pull, and, honestly, even if he did, Karkat’s pretty sure that it wouldn’t reassure him in the slightest. 

It’s a lot harder than he’d like to admit. After years of being alone, talking to someone who can talk back is a relief. He thinks Aradia knows this, from the way she stays silent after asking a question, nodding along to the tangents he can’t quite keep himself from going on. Sollux is struggling to keep up with him at this point. Karkat find this to be hilarious.

“Which room in the house was yours?” Aradia asks, and settles back. 

“The one across from Ka-- Egbert’s. The one across from Egbert’s.” Yeah, way to make his slip-up that much more obvious, especially since Sollux repeats everything he says word for word, slip-ups and all. So smooth.

“Have you moved anything in there?” Aradia asks John. 

He blinks. “Uh, not really. Just a few boxes of books and stuff. I haven’t really needed to use that one.”

“Good. It’d be best to keep it that way. Everyone needs their own space, right?” Aradia flashes a smile at Karkat, like she’s sharing a secret with him. 

Karkat is distracted by the sound of pages turning. He shifts his attention to see Sollux flipping through the papers in the clipboard in his hands. He’s been scribbling in there, although Karkat can’t guess what -- probably something stupidly inane -- but whatever the case is, he doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

“AA, you forgetting something?”

Aradia tilts her head slightly to the side. “Am I?”

“The sketch?” 

“Oh!” She reaches out to take the clipboard when Sollux offers it. “Thank you, Sollux. What would I do without you?”

“Well for one you’d be out of a job,” he says, and Aradia laughs.

“True, true. Karkat!” Karkat jumps at the sudden use of his name. Aradia twirls a pencil in her hands -- where the fuck did that come from, she didn’t have that a few seconds ago -- and smiles at him again. “Keep still.”

He freezes in place, and Aradia begins to scribble on the paper.

“...What the fuck are you doing?”

“Just stay still and you’ll find out,” Sollux says. Karkat shoots him a glare, but otherwise doesn’t move.

Aradia finally says after a minute, “Done!”. She holds up the clipboard for everyone to see.

On the paper is, of all things, a drawing of Karkat. A pretty decent one, actually. It shows him standing with his arms crossed, a disgruntled look on his face as he scowls somewhere off to the side.

It kind of makes him think of Terezi, for some reason.

“Not only does he sound like an asshole, but he looks like one, too,” Sollux says. Karkat is in the middle of flipping him off when he remembers Sollux can’t see it, and smoothly disguises the gesture as brushing hair out of his eyes. Even though _Sollux can’t see it_. Jesus. Karkat is distracted from his several moments of stupidity when John speaks up.

“Wait,” John says, squinting a little at the drawing until Aradia hands it over. He stares at it for a second before looking back up again, his eyes flicking between Sollux and Aradia. “Is this him?”

“Yep!” John goes back to studying the drawing while Aradia talks. “I always draw what my clients look like. This way it’s easier to see that they’re just as human as you and I. It’s really easy to forget that when you can’t see them like I can.”

“Huh.” John studies the picture for another moment before handing it to Sollux. 

There’s a tearing sound as the paper is ripped from the notebook. “Here, take it. I don’t really care what he looks like, and you’re the one who has to live with him.” Sollux holds the drawing back toward John. “If anybody’ll need a reminder of his humanity then it’ll be you.”

“Oh. Sweet.” John takes it. Karkat can’t quite describe the strange relief he feels when John finally tucks it away and out of sight.

Aradia and Sollux have to leave not too long after that. They say their goodbyes much like they did the last time. John sees them out the door.

He stands in the open doorway for a minute, staring out at the neighborhood. The sun is just barely starting to set. Everything has an air of quietness to it.

Karkat thinks, as the shadows begin to lengthen: if only it could last.

\- -

A month passes.

Karkat likes to think that he’s starting to get better.

He still has a few slip-ups here and there, obviously. But it’s getting easier for him to keep himself from acting on the impulse to wreck John’s shit every time he gets a chance. John, meanwhile, has been growing more and more confident. Or at least, less skittish in his own home. With every day that passes that doesn’t involve getting the crap scared out of him, he walks through the house easier, spends less time checking and double-checking the powder under the door of his room.

Which is why, when John comes home from work one day with a long plastic bag under his arm, glancing around like he expects something to jump out at him at any moment, Karkat is suspicious as fuck.

Karkat doesn’t get to find out what’s in the bag for almost a week, which pisses him off. (Almost everything John does pisses Karkat off, though, which definitely doesn’t help anything.) He would have just looked inside it, but the first thing John does is bring it into his room, and there’s a better chance of Karkat seeing his brother again than getting in there, what with the way John still has the doorway powdered to hell and back.

So when John comes out of his room one night with the bag under his arm, and sits down at the living room table, Karkat’s interest is piqued.

John doesn’t do anything for a few seconds. Just stares hard at the bag in his hands. Right when Karkat is starting to contemplate spurring him on, John takes a breath, and pulls the mystery object out of the bag.

It’s--

holy shit.

“Alright. So,” John begins. “It’s been a while. And I haven’t really been able to find out much since the last time with Aradia because she had to leave and help her friend. Or something. So -- god I feel so stupid right now, it’s like I’m twelve again -- when I saw that they had it at the bookstore, I bought this.” 

John sets the ouija board down on the table, and Karkat stares.

“No way,” Karkat says. “You have got to be kidding me.”

John laughs a little, a quiet, nervous sound. He lifts the cover of the box to the board, setting everything up, staying silent throughout the whole thing. It’s only when the board and planchette are out and ready that John settles back into the couch again.

“So, Karkat. I hope you’re actually here and I haven’t just been talking to myself. That would be so embarrassing, right?” John looks around what to him must look like a completely empty room. He clears his throat. “Yeah. Okay, I feel like an idiot.” 

John shakes his head, and puts his fingers lightly on the planchette. He breathes in and out for a moment, saying nothing, until, “Is Karkat here?”

Karkat just stares for a moment. John fidgets.

Oh, what the hell. Karkat sits down, sets his fingers on the planchette, and slowly begins to move it.

YES

John sucks in a breath.

“Woah,” he says. “That’s cool.” 

“Yeah,” Karkat mutters, “as if you haven’t seen anything a hell of a lot crazier than this in the past couple of months.” 

“So...” John trails off a little. “ I’m not really sure what to ask next. I didn’t really think I would get this far, haha.”

Karkat lifts a hand to rub at his eyes. “Of course not.”

“...How old are you?”

The creativity with these questions is astonishing. Karkat moves the planchette, though, wanting to get on with it.

2 0

John blinks the second that the planchette stops moving. “Really? So am I, what a coincidence.” He chews on his lip thoughtfully as Karkat rolls his eyes. “And I already know how you died... Hm. Oh!” John straightens up a little, his eyes focused on the board. “I’ve been wondering this for a while, actually. Were you the one who wrote that poem in the closet, or did you copy that from somewhere else?”

Like he would ever just _copy a poem_ from somewhere without at least putting the name of the author down. He may be an asshole, but at least he’s not a plagiarizing asshole.

ME

John makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat. “Who was it about?”

A FRIEND

“Just a friend?”

YES

“Ouch.”

Karkat moves the planchette away, and then back to YES.

“What was her name?”

As if Karkat is going to tell him. That’s a little too personal for his liking, fuck you very much.

NO

“Okay...” John trails off again, before asking, “Did you live here by yourself?”

Karkat hesitates for a moment, before moving the planchette away from NO and then back again.

“Your parents?”

NO

“A friend?”

If he lets John keep guessing like that, they’re going to be here all night. Karkat moves the planchette to spell out the letters before he can convince himself not to.

BROTHER

“Oh. Were you guys close?”

Karkat hesitates for a bit longer this time. 

He settles the planchette between the YES and the NO. 

“That sucks,” John says. He’s silent for a moment. “I used to live with my dad. Before he...”

Karkat has a feeling that he knows what John can’t say.

DIED

“Yeah.”

SORRY

John shrugs. “I have my friends. Maybe your brother’s friends helped him out, too.”

Karkat would like to think that. He doesn’t find it very likely.

MAYBE

“Do you miss him?” John asks, and Karkat is about to spell out letter by letter exactly how much of John’s business that _isn’t_ , when he stops. 

YES

“Me too,” John says quietly, and Karkat knows John isn’t talking about Kankri.

TEREZI

“What?” John’s eyebrows are scrunched up in confusion.

HER NAME IS TEREZI

John’s eyes widen a little when he finally manages to decipher the clusterfuck of letters, and then he smiles, and somehow, Karkat feels a little lighter.

\- -

“It’s a very nice house, John,” Rose says, her legs crossed where she sits on the couch. Karkat has had a hard time looking away from her from the moment she stepped inside. She definitely demands the attention, with the way her white hair contrasts with her dark skin, her lavender eyes set blazing, but Karkat thinks it’s...more than that, somehow. Her lips quirk a little as she smiles. “If only brother dearest and Jade were here to admire it along with me.”

“I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” John says. “It’s not the first time they’ve been late.”

No sooner does Rose roll her eyes at the statement than there’s a knock on the door, followed by a female voice. “John! Open up, dunkass!”

John’s face breaks into a bright smile, and Karkat and Rose follow him to the door.

A figure bowls into John the second he opens it. He hugs the girl tight. “Jade, you made it!” He laughs, and holds out a fist to the the guy who steps inside.

“Egbert,” Dave greets, bumping their fists together, and closes the door behind him. “I see Rose is here already.”

“Ah, the woes of those cursed with the disease of punctuality. Although it appears some lucky few are still immune,” Rose returns, smiling. She hugs Jade when the girl moves on from John. “It’s been a while.”

“What better reason to get together than a housewarming party?” Jade beams.

John squints behind his glasses. “I’m pretty sure it’s not a party if there are only four people, Jade.”

Dave throws an arm around Jade’s shoulder, who has since stuck out her tongue at her brother, gesturing with his hands as if a great scene were unfolding before them. “No, see, I got this. We go up and down the block in my ride with a megaphone, right? Going ‘party at Egberts, be there or be losers!’ at the top of our lungs as we blast the dopest music we can get our hands on. We’ll have the entire city lining up at your doorstep before you can put out the refreshments. Foolproof pan.”

“Dave.” Jade clasps one of Dave’s hands in hers, looking him solemnly in the eyes. Shades. “Dave, I love you, but no.”

“Aw, Jade, come on.”

“Obviously we need to have the refreshments set out _before_ we start inviting everyone in the city,” she finishes. “We have to have our priorities straight!”

John has the _weirdest_ friends.

Karkat follows them through the house as John shows them around. He formally introduces the kitchen, the bathrooms, shows them upstairs to the guest room and John’s room. Jade stops by the only closed door in the entire house.

“What’s in this one?” Jade asks, and John stops her hand as she goes to open it.

“Nothing!” John says, “Just some old boxes and stuff.”

“John,” she begins, crossing her arms. Her eyes stand out against her face as she glares. “Are you lying to me?”

“I’m not, I promise.”

“Then let me in.”

“Nope,” John says, and moves a little further in front of the door. “Sorry Jade. You’re the best sister ever and I love you more than anything, but this room is off-limits.

“And I’m not moving until you tell me what’s in there!” Jade counters. 

Karkat rolls his eyes, and opens the door himself.

John blinks. “Uh,” he begins eloquently, the door cracked open behind him where it definitely had not been before. “Okay. Not off-limits, then.”

He moves aside, and Jade uses the opportunity to walk right into the middle of the room, placing her hands on her hips. The other three follow after her.

“It’s empty,” Jade states. “Why were you getting so touchy over an empty room?”

“Are you sure it’s empty, Jade?” Dave asks. “Maybe John is actually a serial killer and he hides all of the body parts under the floorboards.”

“Nice,” Rose observes. “Been brushing up on your Poe?”

“I try.”

“But seriously John, you still haven’t answered my question.”

All three of them are looking at John now. He rubs at a shoulder self-consciously.

“Well. It’s just, uh. Karkat’s room.”

“Oh,” Jade says, “you mean the guy who--”

“Yeah.”

There’s a few moments where everyone is silent. 

“Spoopy,” Dave says, and the weird tension that had been building breaks.

“All four of you are idiots,” Karkat mutters as they file out, and Rose stops in her tracks in the middle of the doorway. She turns, her eyes sweeping over the room in a sharp, assessing gaze. When she gets to where Karkat stands, she stops.

“Rose, you coming?” Dave calls.

“I’ll be right down,” she calls back, not looking away. Quietly enough that only the two of them can hear, she says, “Just thought I heard something.”

She turns, and closes the door behind her.

Weird.

\- -

They’re all sitting on the couch around the living room table. Karkat is, too, because if he tries hard enough he can pretend that he’s actually a part of the fun going on, even if they can’t hear anything he’s saying. (It doesn’t escape him how disgustingly pathetic it is. He tries not to think about it.)

Dave breaks off from some long-winded tangent on eggs (eggs? really?) he’d been going on when something catches Rose’s eye from under the table. She pulls it out in one, smooth motion.

“John,” she says calmly. “I’m not normally one who operates under such delusions, but please tell me that this isn’t what I think it is.”

“...That’s exactly what you think it is,” John says, looking guiltily at the ouija board in Rose’s hands, a faint flush rising in his cheeks.

“ _John_ ,” she begins, bringing a hand to rub at her face. Dave mutters something along the lines of _Oh crap, you’re in the shitter now, son._ “This isn’t just a toy you can whip out at sleepovers to try to give your friends a nice scare. This is _serious_.”

“I know!” John says. “I wasn’t going to do that. I’ve been, uh. I’ve been using it.”

“Oh,” she says, and then “Oh John, no, I know you miss him but this isn’t the way--”

“Holy shit no!” John shakes his head vigorously from side to side. “I haven’t been trying to talk to him. That is not a thing I’ve been trying to do, okay?”

“Then who?”

“With Karkat,” he says, and then rushes on before Rose can say anything else. “After I talked to that guy you sent over here and then Aradia and Sollux had to leave I thought it would be a good way to stay in the know with him. And it worked! I’ve talked with him a couple times already.”

“And you’re sure it’s him you’ve been talking to?” Rose asks, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yes.” Karkat is surprised at the conviction in John’s voice. 

“And you’ve been saying goodbye every time you left the board?”

“Yes, Rose. Trust me, okay?”

Rose hums uncertainly in the back of her throat. Dave leans forward in his seat.

“Wait, so you’re saying you’ve actually gotten this thing to work?” 

John shrugs. “Yeah.”

“What do you say we take it for a spin, then?”

“If you’ve already used it,” Rose says, frowning slightly, “I suppose there’s not much more damage you could do.” She hands the ouija board to John. “Just be careful, please.”

“I promise. And, I guess we can? It depends on if Karkat is here or not, though.” It’s almost sweet how John assumes Karkat has anything else to do. John starts unpacking it from the box anyway, and when he’s done, it’s him, Jade, and Dave on the planchette. Rose shakes her head. John shrugs again.

“You here, Karkat?”

Karkat begins to move the planchette over, and Dave says, “Holy shit.”

NO

“Are you just being an ass?” John asks.

YES

“Ass.” John rolls his eyes. “This is Jade, my sister,” he says, nodding to the girl next to him. “This is Dave, and over there is Rose.”

“Hi, Karkat!” Jade says. 

HI

“Join us to meet hot spooky singles in your area,” Dave says, and even Karkat has to huff a laugh at that one. “All limbs not included.”

Jade snickers to herself before she asks a question. “ _Are_ you single?”

Karkat can only stare at her in disbelief for a moment. John speaks up though, taking the words right out of Karkat’s mouth. “Uh, Jade, Karkat’s a ghost? I’m pretty sure that means he’s single.”

“Who knows, maybe he’s banging some ghosty-goo,” Dave breaks in. “Got his hands full of skeleton titties. You don’t know what he gets up to while you’re not looking, probably on your bed. Vulcanizing meat rockets. Retrofitting the pudding hatch. Clam diving, dual-wielding, smoking sausages, thinking with portals, churning someone’s butt--”

Jade puts her hand over Dave’s mouth. Karkat starts to regret the limitations of the ouija board, which would make communicating the exact ways Dave could vulcanize his _own_ meat rocket take hours.

“You need a muzzle,” Rose says. John tries very hard to pretend his face isn’t bright red. 

One hand still covering Dave’s mouth, Jade takes mercy on them all and changes the subject. “How long have you been here, Karkat?”

GREW UP HERE, Karkat spells out, and Jade makes a thoughtful noise. “Have you been here since you died?”

YES

“Mf nhf,” Dave says, and then when Jade moves her hand away, “so you’re saying you’ve been getting your ghostly voyeur on since John moved in?”

“It’s not like that!” John splutters. “Besides, he can’t even get into my room. So, _ha_.”

“Was that you in the empty room earlier, Karkat?” Rose asks suddenly, cutting off Dave from whatever he’d been about to say. Probably for the best.

“You’re not allowed to do that,” Dave says instead. “Only people who are in on the board can ask questions. Gotta play by the rules, sis.”

Karkat rolls his eyes, and moves the planchette away from the YES and then back again. Dave mutters a very heartbroken “Aw, not fair.”

“I thought so,” Rose says. “I’ve been feeling something ever since I got here. It would make sense.”

“Feeling what?” Jade asks.

“Karkat, I would say. It’s hard to explain. He feels-- heavy,” she finishes, as if that’s something that actually makes sense. Although it kind of does, in the same way that somehow Rose feels _bright_.

“Well, you got your psychic voodoos, sis, it would make sense for you to feel something.” Dave re-adjusts the glasses on his face with a hand, his other still on the planchette. “Although personally I can’t feel shit. Kind of lame, if you ask me.”

“I think this is cool!” Jade says. “It’s not every day you get to talk to a ghost.”

“This all feels kind of tame, though,” Dave says. “Like, where’s the floating shit, all of the spooky noises. I didn’t pay my hard-earned cash for this kiddy haunted house.”

Oh, so he wants to be entertained, does he?

Looks like it’s time to put on a show.

John shakes his head. “Dave, you--”

The TV turns on to static, and everyone on the couch jumps as if on cue.

“Oh no,” John says.

Every light in the house turns off, plunging them into a darkness punctuated by the harsh light of the TV in front of them. It takes a bit of effort from this distance, but every door closes with a slam one by one. They all jump when a chair in the kitchen falls over, followed by the sound of the garbage disposal in the sink turning on. And then--

Ow.

The lights turn back on with a faint whine as Karkat rubs at his temples with a frown. Even the TV is off again. Okay. Note to self: do not pull that shit, you will get the biggest fucking headache. 

Although, as far as the living people in the house know, that was all according to plan.

They’re all backed up against the couch, John with a look of resignation on his face, Dave almost clinging to Jade’s side. So much for the tough-guy act. Rose looks...almost amused, actually. Huh.

With no one else’s hands on it, it’s that much easier to move the planchette back and forth.

HA HA HA

“Okay, I’ll admit it, that was pretty good,” Dave says, detaching himself from Jade. “Spoop levels over nine-thousand.”

Rose tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. There’s a small smile playing on her lips. “The garbage disposal was a nice touch. The TV was classic. I give it a nine out of ten.” 

John groans. “Please don’t encourage him. Things were just starting to actually settle down.”

Jade smacks the back of Dave’s head hard enough that his glasses literally go flying off his face. To Karkat’s utter bewilderment, he manages to catch them mid-flight, placing them back on his nose with one swift movement. Karkat wonders whether this has happened before. “Ow,” Dave says, flatly.

“Buttface! If you just messed things up for John then you’re in charge of walking Bec for a week!” 

Dave actually flinches. “Oh god please no.” He turns a pleading eye to the ouija board. (Or, Karkat assumes it’s pleading. See: shades, and also the otherwise completely flat expression on his face.) “Karkat, buddy, old pal. My best Brokat. Abroham Linc-homie. You’re not gonna go full ghost on John once we’re gone, right?”

Face splitting into an invisible grin, Karkat settles the planchette between the YES and NO. In essence: MAYBE, FUCKWAD. 

(He won’t, though. He won’t. Really.)

“ _Ass_ ,” John repeats, and Karkat thinks to himself: true.

“As concerning as this all is,” Rose says, in a tone that conveys pretty clearly how concerning it isn’t, “we should get going before traffic hits.” She’s looking down at the watch strapped to her wrist. “I’m willing to sit in a metal heat prison only so long for a milkshake.

“Yes!” Jade nearly topples over the entire table as she jumps up from her seat. Karkat, however, does, in his surprise. It’s one of the few times he’s thankful that no one can actually see him. “Milkshakes! Let’s go!”

John is interrupted in the middle of standing up when Rose clears her throat. She glances pointedly to the ouija board. He promptly sits the fuck back down.

“Oh-- yeah, sorry.” He clears his throat as he places his fingers back on the planchette. “Bye, Karkat!” 

“Yeah, bye Karkat!” Jade says as Karkat slides the planchette over to GOODBYE. He wishes he didn’t have to. He doesn’t want them to leave yet. “It was fun talking to you!”

“See you, dude.” Dave rubs his arm where Jade elbowed it. “You know. Figuratively. Because you’re a fucking ghost.”

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” Karkat sneers. He lies back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling as he waits for them to leave. “Have fun with your milkshakes or whatever.”

Karkat is still in the same spot hours later when John finally returns, a single set of footsteps in the quiet. Karkat listens: the unmistakable crinkle of a take-out bag; a plastic cup being placed on the kitchen counter. Silence. Karkat closes his eyes, waiting for the sound of John’s steps receding to his room, only to open them again when they approach the living room table instead. There’s the cup sound, right next to and above him this time. Karkat sits up.

Lo and behold, a white cup with the Denny’s logo plastered over it is placed on a cup holder. John stands behind it trying to look nonchalant and failing desperately. “Sooo...” John’s eyes roam over the room, as if searching for some sign of Karkat’s presence. “I got you a milkshake.”

“What,” Karkat says.

“I know, I know, it was dumb,” John says, and for a second Karkat almost thinks John had _heard_ him before he realizes he’d probably just been expecting that response. “I ordered an extra one before I remembered you were... you know.” John shrugs. _Oops._ “I didn’t know what kind you liked so I got you strawberry. Hope that’s okay.” John offers a smile to the empty air. Turns. Leaves. Karkat is too busy staring at the fucking _cup_ to figure out where to.

What else is he supposed to do? Drink it? Yeah, right, nice try. Karkat wonders what he did to piss John off enough that he’d taunt him like this. Was it the thing with his sock drawer? No, John had laughed at that, dumbass that he is. Was it the fact that Karkat hasn’t left him the fuck alone yet? Plausible. Or, it would be, if John were the type of person to make petty moves like that, which Karkat didn’t peg him as. Maybe he’d just...honestly forgotten?

Karkat stares and the cheery yellow-red logo stares back.

Fuck.

He reaches out, pretending he can feel the texture of the paper under his hands, holding the cup between them. 

If he tries, he can almost taste the strawberry on his tongue.

_ _

There’s a knock at the door.

Karkat is in his room, trying to flip open the most recent book to a page he hasn’t read yet. He’d gotten John to get it for him after the last time they’d talked using the ouija board, and while the teasing had been expected, the reprieve from the ever-present boredom was worth it. If only the damn thing would _stay open where he needed it._

Knock knock. 

Hm. Maybe if he can find a pen to weight down the pages...

He stands with a sigh, phasing through the door of his bedroom and stepping down the stairs to the living room. John will have a writing utensil lying around somewhere. Or at least, something small enough that Karkat can bring back up with him but still heavy enough to accomplish its intended use. 

Another sigh. If he ever thought being a ghost meant having to worry about stuff like this, he never would’ve taken up reading as a hobby in the first place. (Ha, as if.)

Karkat ignores the familiar sound of John’s voice in favor of making a noise of utter _glee_ as his gaze alights upon, behold! A pen. Just what he was looking for. It’s placed on top of a notepad, as if John was in the middle of writing something down himself, but the -- Karkat takes a quick look; towels, hot chocolate (crossed out), toilet paper, cups, hot chocolate (written again, underlined) -- shopping list can wait. The object of his desires duly acquired, Karkat turns to make his way back up the stairs.

“Oh,” he says, as he meets eyes with his brother.

Kankri doesn’t see it when the pen clatters to the floor, lost from Karkat’s grip; he turns back to John, an apology written into the gestures he’s making with his hands and speaking softly. They’re both still standing in the doorway, apparently content to chat it up for a minute, and when Kankri glances up again to look into the house, his gaze sweeps across Karkat like he isn’t even there.

He should be used to it by now. Being looked through is all that Karkat is good for at this point. It still hurts. For a moment he’d almost hoped...

It still hurts.

“...want to intrude,” Kankri is saying when Karkat finally thinks to tune into their conversation. 

“No, no, it’s fine, I understand. Come in.”

Kankri does just that when John steps aside, taking his shoes off by the door, and Karkat huffs a barely-there laugh at the gesture. Some things never change, huh?

Karkat was twenty when he died, a time that most people agree to be just about the peak of any young person’s life, when you’re supposed to go to college and get drunk at parties and make mistakes. He was twenty when he died and he’s been twenty ever since, stuck with the same clothes, the same stature, the same, well. Everything.

Kankri was twenty-five when Karkat died.

He’s twenty-eight, now.

His shoulders are a bit wider. His hair has grown just long enough to start encroaching on shoulder territory, framing the red studs in his ears. The fingers on his left hand are fiddling with new bracelets on his right in a nervous tic that Karkat doesn’t recognize, and the subtle differences in the way he walks alone would be enough to make Karkat do a double-take if his eyes weren’t already fixed on him like glue on more glue.

The shape of his eyes are the same, though. The same god-awful sweater. And over it, the silver cancer sign hanging off of a similarly silver chain that Karkat had gotten him years before. He’s the same in all the ways that count.

He’s still Kankri.

“I’m guessing you already know where everything is,” John says, trying for humor and getting a slightly strained smile from Kankri for his efforts. It’s still much more genuine than Karkat expected from him.

“There is that.” Kankri considers one side of the doorframe that leads into the kitchen, which might have at one point been littered with lines and numbers written in pencil, a record of a certain dead someone’s height over the years. There’s only fresh unchipped paint there now.

“There’s nothing in Karkat’s room, if you uh, want to go up there.”

Kankri’s gaze goes right to the stairs at that, and he winces before turning away. “No, I-- it’s fine. I just wanted to see at least a little of the house again.” He bends to the floor to pick up the fallen pen and places it slowly on top of the table, distracted. “I could use the reminder every now and then.”

“Reminder?” John asks, and then his brain catches up with him. “Shit, sorry, I’m not trying to be nosy. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Water would be perfect, thank you,” Kankri admits, and John nods as he moves past him into the kitchen. “And it’s fine. You have every right to be curious when I’ve just shown up like this. I know I would be.”

“Still.” John nods to the table as he returns, and both of them sit down, across from each other. “It’s, uh...sensitive, you know? I understand.” He slides the bottle of water over to Kankri. 

He doesn’t open it right away, just turning it around in his hands. He stares for a moment at the transparent wrapper. “Things have changed,” Kankri starts, breaking the silence, “a lot, since my brother died. I have...a new job. A new house. New friends. I’ve recently found myself at the head of a non-profit organization that redistributes hundreds of thousands of dollars on an annual basis. I have- I have people, dozens of people, who, who depend on me, I suppose, in so many ways.

“Three years ago, I... I could have only dreamed of being where I am now. I have always wanted to- to help people, I guess you could say. But I was--” Kankri cuts himself off with a laugh. “It feels absurd to say I was _young_ when it was only three years ago, but. It’s true, you know? I was young, and, ah, I think a little too full of myself. I was always so sure I was right. About everything.” Kankri grimaces at his water. Karkat stares.

“Three years ago, I got into an argument. A stupid, trivial argument that I-- I can’t even remember what it was about. Isn’t that incredible?” He laughs again, humorless. John is quiet. “And my brother was angry with me. We were both angry, I think. Usually it was Karkat who was in the mood for a fight, but I’d had a bad day, or- or some other shit excuse I use to justify this entire thing to myself.” Kankri breathes. “In any case. He wanted to leave the house for a while, to clear his head. But I wouldn’t let him. He was so angry.” Don’t do it. “And he--” Don’t. “And he said, _and you wonder why I fucking hate you_ , and he- he tripped, and fell, and those- those were... That’s the last thing I ever heard him say.”

The water bottle crinkles in Kankri’s grip. “I can’t remember what we were fighting over, but- I think- I think I might remember I was _wrong_.

“And I... I could use the reminder, every now and then. That I can be wrong. That I can’t help people if I drive them away first. It’s something I tell myself every day, but I am- I’m still afraid I’ll forget, sometimes.”

Kankri glances up from his water bottle and grimaces again. His eyes are the tired red of someone who’s trying very hard not to cry. “I- I am _so_ sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you. That was entirely inappropriate. You- you didn’t need to hear any of that.”

“No, it-- it’s okay,” John says, very seriously. “I know what it’s like to lose somebody, and feel like it’s your fault. Sometimes you just need someone to talk to. Even if it is a total stranger.” He doesn’t quite smile. “Do you need a minute?”

“Yes, I-- I do.” Kankri rises from his chair. “Please excuse me.” He heads towards the other side of the house, fiddling with his bracelets again. John doesn’t need to show him where the bathroom is.

It’s quiet for a few minutes. John doesn’t get up from his chair. He stares down at the floor, biting his lip, and Karkat wonders what it is, exactly, that he’s supposed to be feeling. He’s not feeling anything in particular right now, honestly. There’s just the vaguely unpleasant sensation of his entire soul breaking in half. He should probably get that looked at.

“Do--” John starts, quietly, and then he stops. He bites his lip some more. Karkat looks to him, blinking. “Should I... Do you want me to tell him?” He pauses. “That you’re here?”

Karkat thinks about it. He thinks about Kankri knowing that he’s still here. He thinks about talking to him again. He thinks about the life Kankri’s managed to build up for himself, of moving on, and of not, of bracelets and stud earrings. He thinks about it.

He knocks lightly on the table, twice, just before Kankri walks back into the room.

His eyes are notably more red than before, but no one says anything about that. 

“Thank you, John,” he says. “I feel awful for coming and saying all this and leaving again so soon, but I just got a call--”

“Oh, don’t worry about it!” John stands from his chair, smiling with a cheer that wasn’t there a minute before. “Duty calls, huh?”

“Unfortunately.” Kankri smiles, and it’s tired. “Thank you. Honestly. I don’t think I can tell you how much this visit means to me.”

John nods. “Anytime. I mean it.”

Kankri puts his shoes back on. He and John say their goodbyes much more quickly than they’d said their hellos -- isn’t that how it usually turns out, anyway? -- and soon enough there’s a door between Karkat and his brother. A door. A life. A lot of things.

Karkat breathes.

“He was nice,” John says. Karkat cracks a smile despite himself.

“Yeah.”

The bottle drips water where it sits on the table, unopened.

_ _

John moves through the house as if trying his damndest to keep it from staying quiet. He leaves the radio on playing the latest pop trends, and invites friends for impromptu get-togethers. Karkat appreciates the sentiment, he thinks. It’d be all too easy to fall back into something somber, which- god, Karkat is sick and tired of being fucking sad and shit.

It takes a couple weeks of this before John pulls out the ouija board, quietly. 

“What, no sing-song bullshit for me today?” Karkat snarks. “Am I not worth the over-enthused greeting you see fit to constantly grace my abused ears? I’m ready, John. Make it count.”

“Uh,” John says. “Heeey Karkat.” He places his fingers on the planchette. “What’s up?”

LITTLE, Karkat returns. “But you should know that by now.” WHY

“Well.” The nervousness in John’s expression drips down into his fingers, making them twitch enough that it’s only Karkat’s hold that keeps the planchette from skittering off the board. “I was... maybe wanting to talk to you about something? Kind of important?”

“Oh, great.” HIT ME

John says nothing. He’s still for several long moments. Karkat isn’t expecting him to take his fingers off the planchette, and he isn’t expecting John to reach into his pocket, or pull something out of it to place on the table between them.

Karkat isn’t really sure what it is he’s looking at, really.

WHAT, Karkat says.

“Back when you were still, um...spooky...” John says, “Yes, I know, you’re still mega spooky Karkat, it’s okay. But before when I was kind of afraid you were gonna kill me in my sleep and stuff, when Aradia came over, she wasn’t really sure you could be helped, you know? Like, maybe you were too far gone and were super close to robbing me of my life juice or whatever.”

“Life juice,” Karkat repeats. 

“Anyway, you know how there’s a whole bunch of myths about how you need to burn the body to banish a ghost?” John’s voice raises in pitch as he talks, cheer forcing its way into his voice. He continues completely unaware of the way Karkat squints. “Apparently, all you _really_ need is a super concentrated salt bath! And uh, funny story, um, apparently Aradia has a friend who’s a curator of the local cemetery-- shit Karkat, I’m a shitty friend. And I-- okay, okay,” John interrupts the middle of Karkat spelling out GET ON WITH IT, rubbing a hand down his face. “Look, there’s no easy way for me to say this.”

John gestures to the table. “That’s yours.”

Karkat stares, bewildered, at the tightly braided lock of hair. “...Excuse me?”

“She gave it to me as a safety measure,” John says, subdued. “Y’know. In case you tried to kill me. I think she must’ve like, dug up your grave or something--”

“She dug up my _fucking GRAVE?!”_ The TV switches on to static, which is weird, because Karkat hadn’t even _meant_ to do that and now John is giving it a miserable, guilty look.

“It’s not like I asked her to!” he protests, though against what, Karkat can only imagine. He’s too busy focusing on feeling violated to take a guess. “And it’s not fair. Not to you, not anymore. I don’t...” John grimaces. “I don’t like the idea that I literally hold your existence in my hands, okay? It’s super weird and gross. So... full disclosure. You get to decide what to do with it.”

There a small eternity where nothing moves.

THIS IS FUCKED

“Tell me about it.”

“Fuck,” Karkat mutters, “you fucking idiot. You’re telling me that you could’ve dropped that shit and lost it from the beginning? I can’t believe the remnants of my rotting consciousness was entrusted to your grubby hands.”

Karkat wonders what it would feel like.

“...I could rebury it?” John suggests. “Or, I don’t know, maybe I could-- shit, how do voodoo dolls work? Can voodoo dolls work on dead people? Rose would probably know.”

He’s seen the matchbooks littered around the house. He’s heard John tell people he likes the way it feels to light a match over a mechanical lighter. Karkat is more than familiar with the smell of smoke.

“That’s way too close to Strider puppets though,” John continues. “I think Dave would actually die. Maybe something else.”

Has he burned before?

KEEP IT

“Uh?” John startles at the board.

KEEP IT, he spells again.

“Are you sure?”

Karkat doesn’t move the planchette to yes. He figures the lack of response is as indicative of his seriousness as anything. He watches John pick up the lock of hair, hesitantly, and when he talks again he looks at is as if it’s Karkat he’s talking to, truly seeing face to face.

“This will definitely come back to bite you in the ass.”

_ _

He hears John scream from the other end of the house, and he barely has the time to think _what the fuck_ before John slams the bathroom door open, towel wrapped around his waist and hair wet and a crazed look in his eye.

“KARKAT,” he yells, “WHAT THE FUCK DUDE.”

“No, _you_ what the fuck.” Karkat resists the urge to yell back, knowing John can’t hear him. “What did I do!”

“Not cool!” is all John says, and there’s genuine anger in his voice when he slams the bathroom door closed again. 

Well, that won’t do, Karkat thinks.

He phases through the door and studiously ignores the fact that John isn’t wearing a shirt. It becomes surprisingly easy when he notices - something else.

The mirror is cracked. Fine spiderwebbed fractures in the glass that span its entire length. Red oozes from between the shards, and for a moment Karkat panics, thinking that John is hurt, until he looks over and confirms that all he looks right now is pissed.

“Uh,” Karkat says, “What the _fuck.”_

He didn’t do this.

There’s a moment of doubt. It persists, and continues to persist, niggling at him as the days pass and John starts to lose sleep again until the doubt is all Karkat can taste. Would he know? Karkat thinks back on the time before, when he first began to lose himself; how easy it had been to slip without realizing it. He thinks about it every time John wakes up screaming from a nightmare. He thinks about it when John tells him to quit stomping upstairs when he’s trying to work. Karkat thinks about it when he sees knives taken from the silverware drawer and displayed neatly on top of the counter, hastily trying to put them back before John sees -- if he hasn’t already.

He wonders -- _is_ he doing this?

Would he know, for sure? Is it possible it’s something so easy to forget? Karkat wishes he still had fingers, a voice, a way to call Aradia or Rose or somebody who could give him an answer, or at least get John far, far away, even as the absolute chucklefuck refuses to do so for reasons Karkat couldn’t possibly comprehend.

John looks haunted. 

Karkat sequesters himself to his room. Little good it would do if he’s really losing it, but it’s the only measure at his disposal. He doesn’t know for sure how long he’s up there (in the normal way that time has lost meaning to him, he assures himself) before he hears John call his name again, from somewhere downstairs.

He’s there in an instant. His heart would be racing if he had one; John never, ever sounds like that.

“This is too far,” John says. He’s sitting on the couch with his head in his hands and it takes Karkat a second to see what he’s talking about.

I’M DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, SON, carved into the wall. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you.” John’s voice is strained, trembling. “You asshole. How could you-- you’d _pretend_ \-- how did you even know?”

“No,” Karkat says, “that wasn’t me.”

“You need to go,” John starts, and then, “no, I’m going. This isn’t working. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I can’t.”

He stands stiffly, marching to his room with a cold tension in the set of his shoulders. He couldn’t hear Karkat protest, so he doesn’t bother trying.

That wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been.

_haha. little bug_

Something in Karkat flares. 

_nesting in filth._ It seeps from the walls. _helpless. fun to watch you squirm_

“No.” Karkat spins in place, glancing everywhere, but there’s nothing. “I don’t care who you are or what sick game you’re playing. Get the _fuck_ out of my house.”

_RUDE LITTLE BUG_ , it roars. Karkat’s vision swims and he chokes, though of course it does nothing. _TRIFLING WITH THINGS IT BOTHERS NOT TO GET UNDERSTOOD. you think your word is worth salt just because you lived here._

“I think any solitary shit nugget I flushed down the toilet when I was still alive is worth more than every single square inch of your putrid mug,” Karkat snarls. “You’re _not_ welcome here.”

_funny,_ it muses, _since your human pet sure seemed willing as to invite any such thing to walk up in this place and make it home_

“Wow, have you ever heard of using context clues to figure out words you don’t know?” The venom in Karkat’s voice masks the way it shakes. Something moves in the corner of his vision, but it’s gone when he spins. “This astral real estate is not for sale!”

_don’t need anything to be offered to me, little bug._ it coos, and seeps, and he can see it crumbling the walls and shaking the foundations and tearing, chewing, until there’s nothing left. _anything as i want, i know more than enough how to TAKE._

Karkat blinks, and the illusion breaks until the only thing shaking is his composure, and the door as John opens it to leave.

\- -

There’s no resentment in him in the days that pass after that. He’s fiercely glad, if anything, that John is not bound to the house in the same way he is, totally and completely. He hopes that John is getting some sleep.

The ghost -- poltergeist -- demon -- chokes the house with the stench of death, staining the walls yellow with it. 

Karkat knows what it’s doing, he thinks. Stalking him. Waiting him out. The way wolves will do (or at least he thinks it’s wolves, he can’t remember), chasing prey for miles and miles until it collapses from exhaustion, unable to fight back. Karkat comes to realize it thinks of the entire thing as something like a game.

You see, it’s much like life was, in the way that no one gave him the rules in the expectation that he wasn’t going to win regardless.

_i’ve ruined countless more powerful than you,_ it purrs. The voice comes from around every corner, behind his shoulder no matter which way he turns. _rent the spectral flesh of those more hardy. YOU PROLONG THE INEVITABLE, hiding from me_

“As if you couldn’t just come get me,” Karkat mutters. Its eyes are on him. “I’m not an idiot, shithole.”

_you think it’s a waiting game,_ it says. _not too far from the truth, little bug._

“Oh yeah? And what is that supposed to mean?”

_you think the house is yours. not anymore. NOT BEEN FOR A WHILE. wonder what’ll happen,_ it says, the sound of footsteps thudding down the walls, _when the latest in the line of successors comes back._

Something cold shoots up Karkat’s spine, wrapping around his lungs like a vice.

“No,” Karkat says, “don’t you dare.”

_can’t afford to wait forever,_ the thing says. _you and i, we got that long lest i finish you off. your little pet won’t even get to taste the eternity we’ve seen. WILL HE NOW._

It doesn’t stop laughing for a long time.

\- -

Karkat doesn’t know what to do.

He’s running out of time. Has been, for a while, but the invisible counter ticking down strikes even louder when it’s not only his own sake on the line. He can’t wait to figure it out until after John gets back. There won’t _be_ anything to figure out after John gets back.

All he knows is he can’t afford to do _nothing._

“I’m done,” Karkat says. “I’m done hiding from you. Get your demonic ass out here and fight me.”

Its presence cloaks the room like decay. _what if i want to wait? want to make you watch as i tear your pet apart._

“But you don’t.” Karkat hopes he sounds more confident than he feels. “You think I’d put up a fight after that? I’d give up easy and you know it. What’s the fun in kicking something that can’t even kick back?”

It laughs again. It’s a tearing sound, digging deep down into every part of him. He hates it. _YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT’S TRUE. very well._ The stench grows stronger, consolidating. _let’s see how well you fare against the likes of me._

Karkat knows the instant he sees it that he’s truly, absolutely fucked.

He’d wondered if maybe it didn’t really have a true form. Why else would it speak to him through the walls, taunting him through smoke and mirrors. But it’s far easier to be afraid of something you can’t see, hidden in the dark, and the demon is overflowing with it.

It melts. Coagulates. Pulls together like wisps from the shadows, towering. Karkat tries to look closely but he _can’t_ , tasting copper on his tongue, and all he can do is tilt his head back to glare up at the things face. Its smile. Its teeth. 

Of course he would be a bug to something like this.

“Fugly,” is all that comes out of Karkat’s terrified mouth. The thing chuckles. 

a cornered animal, lashing out. SO VERY DELIGHTFUL. It moves closer with no particular purpose. maybe if you make this fun your pet’s end won’t be as painful

Karkat growls. “Don’t worry about him, fuckface. It’s just you and me right now.”

is it?

They both stop to listen as the door unlocks.

Karkat would taste bile, if he could. “You-- you knew he was coming back tonight, didn’t you. That’s why you even fucking played along with this, you--”

THE BUG GETS IT! WRITHING IN ITS OWN USELESSNESS. 

He remembers how to move again as it laughs, and he bolts out of his room, down the stairs, rot clinging to his skin as he goes. He’s down there in time to see John loitering between the door to his room and the living room, where the words are still carved into the plaster.

Karkat is panicking. The TV flickers on.

“Karkat,” John says wearily, “I’m not ready to talk to you yet, okay dude? I just came to get more clothes.”

“You need to go _now,_ ” Karkat says. “I swear to god John, if you die here because you decided to _not_ be a gibbering asslick for once in your sorry life I will destroy everything you hold-- no, don’t go in your room, you piece of shit!”

John closes the door behind him. Karkat can feel the thing watching him again, can feel it smiling, can hear it laughing. He grabs the fruitbowl on the table and chucks it at John’s door with everything he has, the heavy glass hitting the wood with a loud thud.

“Idiot! Get _out!_ ” He’s desperate. Karkat knocks over a chair; anything to make noise, anything to get John out of his room and out the door. “Go back to the hotel, go to your friends, squat in the park for all I care, just- leave!” There’s something caught in his throat. He ignores it. His head hurts, and he ignores that too. He kicks another chair.

John’s door clicks open.

“What?” he says. 

“Oh, now you’re listening?” Something like the beginnings of hysteria drive Karkat’s voice up high, pinning it there, strained and thin. “Great! Fucking delicious! I’m about to shed invisible floaty tears at the prospect of you choosing not to ignore me for once in our shared existence, because of _course_ that’s how it works, I’m being _absolutely reasonable_ about every single aspect of this veritable night terror; will you PLEASE vacate the premises lest we both become even more intimately familiar with the phrase R-I-P and you even more literally _rest in fucking pieces--_ ”

Something’s terribly wrong. Even more terribly wrong than things were a second ago. Maybe Karkat is finally starting to fall apart under all this, his voice echoing in his ears and vision tunneling enough to notice. He’d lean on something for support, if it mattered.

“Holy shit,” John says, stepping out of his room and closing the door behind him, “you’re like, worse than Dave?”

“You would burn me like that,” Karkat says automatically, “when I can’t even go to the hospital for treatment.”

“Rose’s wife is a mortician. I think she could patch you up.”

“Unless she can shove her mits into my chest to slap a bandaid on the broken remnants of my heart, I think I’m shit out of luck!”

“Dude, she’s Rose’s wife. I’m pretty sure she can do whatever she wants.”

Wait.

“Wait,” Karkat says. “You can hear me?”

His voice echoes.

“How are you doing that?” John looks over at the TV, tuned again to static. “Is this new?”

“I don’t--” Karkat starts, and he can hear it now; not an echo, distorted and fucked up radio projecting his voice through the television speakers, sounding exactly like his voice has been dragged across several dimensions and a back alley in Toronto to get there. 

He could nearly cry from relief. 

“You need to leave.” He gets straight to the point. He refuses to waste any more time. “There’s something else here, John. It wants to kill you.”

You’d think that this information would be enough to send John running like he should. But he apparently _wants_ this exchange to fall into as many horror tropes as possible, because all he does is stare at the TV for several seconds, unable to taste the blood in the air. 

Karkat isn’t expecting the concern in John’s voice when he says, “What about you?”

“Don’t _worry_ about me,” he growls. “I can kick this thing out as long as I don’t have to worry about you!” Not exactly the truth. But John’s presence here wouldn’t exactly _help._

John, bless his heart, only hesitates for a moment before he decides to stop arguing. The relief Karkat had gotten a taste of increases tenfold as the only living person in the house rushes towards the front door.

Only to crash back down into his stomach as he hears, “Uh, the door won’t budge.”

Of course.

He wants to laugh. He wants to cry (again) (always). But now is not the time or the place, and Karkat is well aware that he should never have expected it to be that easy. 

The demon waits for him by the stairs. REVEL IN YOUR DESPAIR, it says. DROWN IN IT. KNOWING IT FOR THE LAST THING YOU’LL EVER FEEL. TELL ME, LITTLE BUG. It smiles at him, teeth, and teeth. ARE YOU AFRAID?

“Yes,” he says.

ARE YOU TIRED? DO YOU WISH FOR SLEEP? YOUR LAST?

“God, yes.”

I WILL GIVE YOU THIS AND MORE. DEEPEST FEARS AND WANTS MADE TRUE. BOTH YOURS AND HIS, AND YOU WILL MAKE ME STRONGER, AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN KNOW TO DO. The door rattles; John, still trying to open it. WHAT SAY YOU TO THIS?

It’s a funny thing, what hope can do to a ghost.

There had been things he’d left unfinished in life. Words he wished he could have said; stories he wished he’d written; apologies he should have made. Aradia had told him, before she’d left, that nothing is really left unfinished. A sentence stopped halfway through doesn’t have to stay that way forever; someone else will pick up the pen. Someone else will write. It wasn’t his responsibility anymore.

Of course Karkat would go and leave something unfinished in death as well.

“I say,” Karkat begins, voice shaking, “fuck your fucking fugly face.”

The funny thing is: it’s so _easy_ for him to remember the taste of anger in his throat.

But then again: had he ever really forgotten?

Something changes. The sound of the doorknob rattling stops. The smile on the thing’s face melts into a frown, canines protruding through its own face in displeasure. 

YOU THINK YOU CAN DO ANYTHING TO ME? HARM ME, LEST YOU TOUCH ME AT ALL? It doesn’t laugh. I’LL CRUSH YOU.

It’s not the rage of a demon who feels wronged by the sleight of death.

It’s the rage of a dead man who has someone to protect.

Karkat says nothing. His mouth and voice and heart are lost to him, but -- he can see every ribbon, every bond and string holding up the puppet before him, glinting like chains. It roars at him, rushes, descending upon him like a wild animal; it certainly has the claws for it.

But Karkat is faster. He has the ouija board in his hands before the thing has taken a step; has broken it in half before it could open its mouth; has turned it to ash in his palms before it could reach out its hands; and every string goes limp, dead and burned and nothing.

The demon is gone like it was never there. Karkat finds his voice again. All he can think to say is, “Oh.”

He still tastes blood.

Karkat sinks to his knees. Rises to his feet. Shoves his fingers through his eye sockets to try and ease the pressure there. He can hear footsteps approaching but can’t see them, until suddenly he can, and--

Everything is red, red red red in his vision, on his tongue. His head _hurts_ , the wound that killed him ghosting with pain (ghosting haha _FUCK_ ), his skin and his blood and his everything is on fire and it’s too much; a chair is flying across the room and crashes into the wall and breaks into pieces. Not enough.

“Karkat!” The air is humming with energy, generating a false wind that pulls at John’s shirt and whips at his hair. He’s forced to duck as a mug crashes into the wall right where he was standing. “Karkat, I think it’s gone! You can stop!”

He tries. Tries to shove that rage back down where it can’t get at him, where it’s safe, so deep down that he can’t see it or feel it but it’s infinite. Unending. It just goes on and on and on and there’s no end in sight and Karkat is just so _tired_.

everything is lost under the urge to **CRUSH** , to **TEAR** , to **DESTROY**

He blinks. He’s lost time. He doesn’t know how he knows except that everything has shifted.

Something’s changed.

John is looking at him, really _looking_ at him, for the first time. There’s red smeared on the side of his face, so closely mirrored to Karkat’s own death-wound that it hurts. Karkat hopes desperately that that’s why he’s crying, that the pain is what’s causing the tears to streak down his face (he knows it’s not). 

The pain in Karkat’s own head blooms into something searing and just this side of unimaginable. There’s no more time left. 

John fumbles for the book of ever-present matches in his pocket. His hands are shaking. The first match breaks before it ignites, so does the second, and John growls in frustrated distress. In one decisive movement, the third match flares in a small burst of warmth and heat.

Through the static of the TV, barely loud enough to be heard, a cracked, broken voice whispers, 

“Sorry, John.”

John makes a low keen of anguish in the back of his throat, long and drawn out as he shakily draws the flame closer to the small lock of unassuming hair.

Karkat doesn’t know if he can see it, almost consumed by darkness, but he offers John a small smile anyway.

In the end, John Egbert’s face is the last thing he sees.

It’s not the worst thing to fall asleep to.

/////////

John finds the letters almost a month later, paper peeking out from under a familiar plank board in the back of a closet upstairs.

He opens up the diary, startling at the folded up pictures that fall out, and it’s only when he reads the name scrawled in all caps on the inside cover that he realizes what he’s found, and takes a deep breath.

_I’m hiding this here so no one shall ever know my shame,_ starts the first passage, _even if I die. If this is you digging this up, future me: fuck you! And if anyone ever finds this, I WILL come back and haunt their ass from beyond the grave. Yes, I’m talking to you, asshole! You put this pile of shitleaf back where you found it right the fuck now! Don’t think I won’t know. I’ll smell it on you._

He skips a few pages. _The worst part is, I know Terezi knows how I feel about her. Isn’t that just GREAT? It’s fantastic! So, what else can I even say? What else can I do? But she also knows that I’ll always be here if she needs me. So...maybe that’s enough._

The last third of the diary is blank. He flips to the last entry available. 

_Had a fight with Kankri. Again. I think I’ve given him the impression that I enjoy having screaming matches with him, but what else am I supposed to do when that’s the only thing that’ll make him listen to me? I wish he would believe me if I apologized. I wish for once he would apologize first._

_Is it wrong that I want to leave? Just plain get the fuck out of here. Graduate from school for good and fuck off forever. I want to_ do _things. I want to_ be _somebody. People are fucking annoying, but maybe if I’m lucky I can meet somebody who’ll put up with my shit. Is that unrealistic of me? I should never have brought it up._

John can’t read anymore. He puts it down and reaches towards the pictures at his feet. Some are dated, others aren’t; all of them have some piece of Karkat in them, whether he’s visible in the pictures or not. John isn’t sure how he can tell. But he can recognize Kankri in one picture. Can’t recognize the girl with red glasses in another, though he can guess. Pauses at a group shot of people, some of whom he thinks he _does_ know, but he doesn’t want to think about that right now, and he quickly sets it aside.

Just one of Karkat by himself. Pointing the polaroid towards the mirror, staring straight ahead as if daring himself to throw the picture away. John sets this one aside too, carefully.

There’s one more paper. The one that’d made John aware of this secret cache in the first place. He unfolds it, smoothing out the creases as best he can. The ink on the page is shaky.

_There’s not a lot of things for me to say._

_The feeling’s there but words are not enough_

_To justify how scared I am sometimes._

_If (only they were) they would all be punished for their crimes,_

_The ones who take each breath like it’s a chore,_

_Not knowing or caring what they have_

_Should be held close, appreciate their sun._

_My sun is set, my swan song is long done._

_The orchestra (is gone) has left, my time has passed_

_My chances gone, my lungs collecting dust._

_All touch decays while my heart gathers rust._

_But near him I remember how to breathe._

_And if he asked, I’d die for him again_

_To keep him from the darkness of the eve._


End file.
